As portable electronic device designs become more compact, managing thermal loads in integrated circuits (e.g. processing units) becomes more challenging. One reason for this challenge is that high powered portable devices can generate significant amounts of waste heat energy over a relatively compact area. As such, damage due to heat cycling may cause collateral damage to components in close proximity to heat generators. In conventional solutions, fans may be utilized in coordination with a heat sink to dissipate generated waste heat. In some examples, where fans are utilized to cool components, battery life may be significantly lowered.
In one example, FIG. 1 is an illustrative representation of a prior art portable computing system 100. Portable computing systems may have any number of components including a screen 104, a removable media drive 108, a fixed media drive 106, a keyboard 112, and a track pad 110. As illustrated, many components may be housed in a base 102. Typically, as the number and type of components increase, power consumption increases. Because power consumption is directly related to an increase in thermal loading, managing thermal loads becomes a more critical in new system designs. Thus, many cooling systems have been developed to manage thermal loads in portable electronic systems.
FIG. 2 is an illustrative representation of a prior art cooling system 200, which may be utilized with a portable computing system 100 (see FIG. 1). As illustrated, any number of processing units 202, 204, and 206 mounted on board 216 may generate waste heat. As noted above, integrated circuits (e.g. processing units 202, 204, and 206) may generate significant waste heat energy. In this example, a heat pipe 208 may be configured to receive waste heat from processing units 202, 204, and 206. As may be appreciated, heat pipes may be utilized for a wide variety of applications covering the complete spectrum of heat transfer applications. Heat pipes are ideal for applications where heat must be transferred with a minimum thermal gradient to relocate a sink to a remote location. A heat pipe is an evacuated vessel, typically circular in cross-section, which may be filled with a quantity of a working fluid such as water or methanol. Heat pipes are passive and may be used to transfer heat from a heat source to a heat sink with minimal temperature gradients. In this example, heat pipe 208 is configured to transfer heat from heat receiving portion 218 to heat dissipating portion 210. A fan 212 may then be employed to force air across heat dissipation portion 210 as illustrated by lines 214. In this manner heat may be transferred from processing units 202, 204, and 206 to the environment.
Although conventional methods as illustrated may be effective, as noted above, power requirements for fan usage may, in some instances significantly reduce battery life making such a solution somewhat undesirable. Furthermore, use of a fan may, in some examples, contribute to an undesirable increase in noise level. Therefore, handle arrangements with an integrated heat pipe are presented herein.